Pretty. Stupid.

Danny McCarthy is a journalist focused on the intersection of pop culture and politics. His work has appeared in Westchester Magazine, Mediaplanet, The Odyssey Online and The BU Buzz. He is passionate about queer issues, personal essays and Ina Garten. He is currently pursuing a Master's in Journalism from the University of Southern California.

ALL TINDER, NO FLAME

I hate when my throwaway tweets get as much traction as the tweets I carefully crafted and sent out, hair slicked and cheeks rosy, like orderly schoolchildren. I also hate how I “carefully crafted” tweets about me being hot like a model or me making a Matthew McConaughey pun. Which is a lot harder than it looks, because I had to look up how to spell “McConaughey.” Those kinds of things don’t just come naturally, you know.

For the last day, I’ve been messaging some guy on Tinder. I don’t know if he’s trying to act chill, or is just super against punctuation, but it turns me into a crazy person. In the span of a few messages where he, apathetically, asked me what I was doing, I recommended that he check out “Einstein’s gravitational waves theory that was proven right this year” (I accidentally lied, it was 2015 I think). I spun out of control, and I spun out of control hard. This was just after he said he was bored and I offered up that I read the Wikipedia pages for food when I’m bored, like “sandwiches and stuff.” And stuff?

I don’t think it’s a love connection, but there’s something about horrifyingly bland conversations that I can’t ever step away from. Like, I need to talk to them. And if they don’t use punctuations and don’t ask me any questions—oh my god, that’s so hot. He, like, doesn’t care about me at all. Such a turn-on.

But what, I wonder, was the outcome he was thinking? Like will we tell the children of our adopted/surrogated children how their boring grandfather charmed their hot, former-model grandfather by giving one-word responses?

“It was 12:19 am, and I was listening to a podcast and trying to quiet the voices in my head enough to sleep,” I’ll say, my face creepily ageless from years of black-market dermabrasions. I’m dressed in all cashmere because I got all my sweat glands Botoxed away. “Your grandfather texted ‘Hey.’”

I’ll look at my husband of 70 years (we’re 90s+ in this scenario, but I look amazing, you guys), who will be sitting in the chair next to me, staring at me with thinly veiled contempt.

“He said he was ‘doing alright just bored,’ and I knew that he was the guy for me,” I’ll continue, shaking off the slow-burning acidic gaze of my husband.

“I suggested he look into Einstein’s gravitational wave theory,”—all my grandchildren nod because we’re all smart as fuck—“which has some interesting revelations on relativity and spacetime,”—probably irrelevant at this point in time, since we’re all living in a wormhole near Saturn’s outermost ring—“and he said, and I’ll never forget this children, ‘Yea I’d be too confused’.” I’ll grab my husband’s hand, just tight enough that he can’t easily slip away.

We don’t have a lot in common since he told me his interests were “Beer and hiking; lacrosse, reading; just chilling,” and I listed mine as “drinking, tweeting” and then lied and said, “I like hiking” too. That was a boldfaced lie, because hiking is just glorified harder walking, and walking is the worst.

After our grandchildren go back to their respective spacepods via teleportation, I’ll start cleaning our champagne glasses (I refuse to make tea) and clearing away the remnants of our caviar. He’ll be sitting, staring at me over the lip of a can of beer. The silence will be thick and heavy, hanging between us like sodden clothes caught in a rainstorm.

But then he’ll use one little phrase to crack open the mustiness of a 70-year-marriage. My iCranium will flash behind my eyes with a new message. From him.